


Till You See It On The Silver Screen (In Stellar Cartography)

by chaletian



Series: In Which The Enterprise Is Like A Village [9]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-25
Updated: 2013-06-25
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:40:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaletian/pseuds/chaletian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a couple of years, no-one's quite sure who instigated movie night: the decision was lost in the muddle of inventories and medicals and a shakedown mission that featured the Captain breaking two ribs and three crewmen from Engineering losing their uniforms in an unscrupulous game of strip poker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Till You See It On The Silver Screen (In Stellar Cartography)

After a couple of years, no-one's quite sure who instigated movie night: the decision was lost in the muddle of inventories and medicals and a shakedown mission that featured the Captain breaking two ribs and three crewmen from Engineering losing their uniforms in an unscrupulous game of strip poker. Somehow, from this, emerged the tradition: once a week, the giant screen in Stellar Cartography, otherwise used for mapping their voyage, is taken over by Lt Robbins' holoprojector, and each crewmember takes a turn at choosing a film.

**Chekov: The Boy From Alpha Centauri**

As the music swells and the eponymous Hayden sweeps Alanna into his arms, Sulu leans over to Chekov.

"So, this kid saves the _known universe_ and then gets the girl, even though she used to babysit for him."

Chekov beams back. "Da," he says cheerfully, stealing the last mouthful of popcorn from Sulu's bowl. "Is good, yes?"

Sulus shakes his head. "Dude. Could you be any less subtle?"

Chekov just looks confused as Sulu heads for the door. "I do not understand. Sulu? Sulu! Come back? What do you mean? Sulu!"

**Uhura: Two Sides of the Sun**

"I loved this film so much growing up," says Uhura. "My mom and I used to watch it all the time."

It's romantic and sweeping and surprisingly explicit, and during a lull in the post-coital dialogue, someone can be heard whispering, "So, you think that's what it's like for her and you-know-who?"

Uhura's lips tighten and she flushes slightly, and Gaila says, "That reminds me _so much_ of this time before I started at the Academy when I met these three guys in a bar…" and she talks loudly about her sexual exploits until everyone's so amused or turned on or freaked out by what she's saying no-one thinks about Uhura and _you-know-who_.

"It was a really nice film," says Gaila, later.

"Thanks," says Uhura.

**Hamley: Enterprise**

"Isnae this bad luck or something?" asks Scotty, glaring at the screen where a muscled Drew Lewis, wearing the remains of a Starfleet-issue singlet, plays Jonathan Archer. "Watching a movie about a ship called Enterprise ?"

"Shhh!" hisses Hamley. He's still not forgiven Scotty for his epic feud with Archer. "This is a classic of modern historical cinema."

"Aye, more like a classic of modern historical revisionism," grumbles Scotty. "I mean, look at the man! Archer never looked that good."

"He is a GOD OF A MAN!" declares Hamley, and Scotty subsides, though doesn't miss the opportunity to add a postscript to his next message to Archer (carefully encrypted inside a subspace communiqué about dilithium crystal decay after a terse lecture from Kirk on the perils of a conducting a cold war with a venerable and decorated Starfleet officer – a lecture that sounded disconcertingly like the voice of experience), informing him that the only person interested in watching his character cavort around yon stage was a half-witted Engineering crewman who couldnae align a plasma coil without written instructions and a flashing sign sent down by God.

**Winters: The Great Plague**

"My God!" says Bones, chucking instruments onto a tray with unusual vigour and only missing braining Kirk by about an inch. "Can't you throw him out an airlock or something?"

Jim just grins. "Come on, Bones, you love him really."

Bones raises an eyebrow. "Sure I do. So much that if he actually _caught_ the plague, I would not only leave him to die, I would paint a cross on his door to make sure no-one else came to his aid, and I would DANCE on his GRAVE at the end."

"So, I take it you're not coming to movie night?"

Bones glares. Jim makes a judicious getaway.

**Sulu: The Three Musketeers**

"Swords," says Sulu in explanation, as he sends out the ship-wide notice of that week's film choice.

Kirk nods approvingly. "Awesome."

**Oyewale: The Beast Man of Betelgeuse**

"It's an awesome film," Oyewale is telling people a month before it's his turn. "An absolute classic. Modern horror at its best." He waxes lyrical on the subject non-stop, until people are wishing for the film just so it'll be over, and Robbins is getting tired of having to shrug apologetically, like it's his fault his boyfriend's so obsessed by the Beast Man. "Honestly," Oyewale says, "it's got everything. Action and comedy and romance and gore. You'll love it."

Three days before movie night, Oyewale is on an away mission and is killed in a cave-in. On movie night, Kirk and Chekov are walking past Stellar Cartography just before three bells and are surprised to see Robbins setting up the holoprojector. He's pale and a little more tightly-wound than usual, but he smiles when he sees them.

"Captain! I wasn't sure you'd come!"

Kirk freezes for a half a second, then smiles, and saunters over and claps him gently on the shoulder. "Hey, you know me: I never miss movie night!" He grimaces eloquently at Chekov, and the Russian looks wildly around him.

"Um, yes… I have… zere is a… vill be back in a minute…" He dashes off, and almost immediately people start drifting in, Chekov skulking back just as Robbins sets the holoprojector going, and The Beast Man of Betelgeuse begins.

After an hour and a half, it ends.

"So," someone says.

"Yeah," says someone else.

"That film was poorly structured and badly acted," says Spock, and a couple of people try to hush him, but he's broken the ice.

"It's a _terrible_ film," says Robbins.

"Terrible, Lt?" says Kirk. "That film would've had to have Mikhail fucking _Olivier_ playing the Beast Man to even _get_ to terrible!"

"I think my eyeballs might actually be bleeding," says Bridgerton blankly. "Are my eyeballs bleeding?"

"I thought this film was a damn modern masterpiece," objects McCoy. "Oyewale distinctly said that."

Uhura laughs. "Yeah, but he also said Andorian chime music was the most lyrical expression of love and peace he'd ever heard."

"I'm pretty sure that's their equivalent of war drums," says Scotty, scratching his head, and everyone laughs.

"Hey," says one of the nurses, "do you remember when he…"

**Spock: TBC**

The atmosphere in the mess has been tense for a good couple of weeks. Every waking moment not taken up in duties finds Sulu and Chekov poring over padds, making ever more complex probabilistic calculations. They've been waiting for this for three years, and they're determined to get it right.

"Look," says Sulu, "Vulcans don't have a big history of cinema, right? They w- they're more about live theatre. So that narrows it down a lot."

"And also," says Chekov, " zere is not much on the ship's memory."

Sulu holds up a finger. "Exactly!" They look comforted by this, then Chekov's face falls.

"But he has spent a lot of time wiz the Captain since we left," he points out, but Sulu is not dissuaded.

"Right – so, we factor in Kirk's tastes. Which are twentieth century classics…"

"…twenty-second century abstract emotionalism…" (They both shudder; Kirk's movie choice, a year or so ago, remains with everyone: a four hour epic, mostly in beige tones, that was somehow supposed to evoke sadness, hunger, loss and regret through the medium of discordant music and courtly dance – the crew is split in thinking Kirk's actually into that sort of thing, and thinking it was a ship-wide punishment for that whole Tribble incident.)

"…and porn." Sulu considers this. "But I doubt Spock'll go there." He looks determined, and points his padd at Chekov. "OK. We need a list of all the films on the ship's database that are Vulcan in origin, or based on Vulcan stories, or are about Vulcan. We also need to cross-reference all the films that match Kirk's tastes. Ideally, we need to find a way of checking what he's watched and… what?"

Chekov looks at him, face tragic. "We forgot Uhura," he says sadly.

Sulu stares at him. He swears, then sets his jaw. "OK, this is gonna be harder than we thought," he says. "But damn it, Chekov, we will work out the odds on Spock's movie choice!"

At the end of Spock's chosen film, Sulu and Chekov are left looking at each other, bemused.

"Did that even come up on any of our lists?" asks Sulu.

"Hairspray?" says Chekov. "Definitely not."


End file.
